Roy Keane has warned his faltering Manchester United team-mates that he does not expect Arsenal to toss away the Premiership title two seasons on the trot.

The championship race enters a potentially decisive weekend with the still unbeaten Gunners holding a five-point advantage over the second-placed Reds with Chelsea a further point adrift in third.

With the two capital contenders due to meet at Stamford Bridge tomorrow lunchtime, the Red Devils' own high-noon showdown with relegation-threatened Roses rivals Leeds takes on huge significance.

Having lost two of their last four league games, conceding nine goals in the process, the Reds hardly look in the kind of form that saw them claw back an eight-point lead in the final two months of last season's campaign.

Although they can fall back on the experience of 12 months' ago as they begin this season's fightback, Keane is not of the opinion that Arsenal will collapse again. And the influential Irishman is adamant the Old Trafford outfit cannot afford to fall any further behind.

"I can't see Arsenal slipping up like they did last year," said the 32-year-old.

"The gap is five points now and we cannot afford to let it get any wider.

"It worries me that we have lost five times and Arsenal haven't lost at all because if you want to win the championship, the fewer games you lose the better.

"We are putting ourselves under a lot of pressure, especially against the other big teams we have still to face. It basically means that when we play Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea we will have to win. We will have to attack them and that leaves us vulnerable at the back.

"We did it last year and hopefully it will be the same again but I would prefer not to be in that position."

On paper, the arrival of Leeds would not appear to represent the stiffest of tests. It is 23 years since they last tasted victory at Old Trafford and now they are without Mark Viduka, the Australian Soccer Association having invoked the Fifa five-day ruling to prevent him playing against the Reds after he failed to fly out for Australia's friendly in Venezuela.

Alan Smith should give the flaky Reds' defence a thorough workout but Ruud van Nistelrooy and Louis Saha are capable of inflicting more damage.